Rise of the Zootopian Star Republic
by Zarpaulus
Summary: One year after Bellwether's attempt to turn Zootopia's citizens against one another the skies overhead light up with the flashes of exploding starships. Now aware that they are not alone in the universe the mammals of Zootopia must scramble to survive in a hostile galaxy.
1. Prologue

_One year after the Night Howler conspiracy._

The being who had gone by the name of Dawn Bellwether for nearly four years now fumed in her prison cell. She had been so close, _so close_! A couple more years of work and she would have ruled this planet. Taking over Zootopia by inflaming racial tensions had been so simple, once she implemented the Night Howler crisis on a national level the federal government would readily adopt her control collars and the predators would start a civil war. Then, it would have only taken a bit more persuasion for the terrified populace who had abandoned even gunpowder to accept the "aid" of a sympathetic foreign nation with surprisingly advanced weaponry.

Yet it had all fallen apart thanks to a pair of stupid primitives who shouldn't have even been working together according to everything she knew about their species. Even without her subterfuge they should have been at each other's throats, but instead they had not only stumbled upon her agents, they had rooted out the infiltration all the way up to its' leader. Herself.

The being that had called herself Bellwether had dwelt upon this over and over again for months, and still she had no answers. How had that bunny slipped past her? How might she salvage this situation? Why didn't the Suzerainty answer her calls?

She imagined Xani ships raining fire down on Zootopia's pretentious "organically designed" skyscrapers, Vheln troops marching through the streets and dragging that rabbit and her vulpine friend to the newly built slave processing center. Once they answered her, once they answered her.

3rd Jaktox Husk Squadron to Zol Outpost: Requesting resupply and repairs.

Zol Outpost to 3rd Jaktox Husk Squadron: Damage assessment, critical repairs needed?

3rd Jaktox Husk Squadron to Zol Outpost: One cruiser at 43% hull integrity, other damaged ships could not escape.

Zol Outpost to 3rd Jaktox Husk Squadron: Infiltration team has been compromised, they must be eliminated before native population uncovers their origins. You are ordered to perform surgical orbital strikes on compromised agents.

3rd Jaktox Husk Squadron to Zol Outpost: Order confirmed.

Judith Hopps was just finishing up her shift at the ZPD, it was the first anniversary of her and Nick's solution to the Night Howler case, and they had plans for later that night. She'd let her partner work out most of the details, and was hoping for something big. But, as she stepped out of the SUV she noticed the fox staring upwards at the sky, a look of cautious curiosity on his face.

"Something wrong?" She asked, trying to follow his gaze.

Nick kept his gaze focused on something off in the distance. "I was never much of an astronomer, but don't you think those stars are moving rather fast?" He lifted a finger towards a cluster of dim lights visible in the night sky. The sun was almost set and the light pollution ordinances were starting to kick in, the moon and a few stars were already visible, but the ten or so her partner was watching were slightly brighter than the rest and moving much faster than their dimmer compatriots.

Judy considered them for a minute before suggesting "I'd guess satellites. But, they're moving in a cluster, I don't think they set those up that close together." As they continued to watch the strange stars slowed seemingly to a halt and hung suspended over the city. Then, to their utter astonishment, three shooting stars sped out from the star cluster and descended to spots off in the distance.

They tracked one with their eyes as it fell to earth somewhere outside the city, and were almost blinded by the flash of a mushroom cloud as it detonated. Nick managed to turn away before the light permanently took his vision and threw his partner to the ground right as the shockwaves reached them. Around them, throughout the city, windows cracked or shattered entirely, car alarms went off, and disaster sirens resounded.

Blinking away the spots in his vision Nick glanced down at the bunny laid beneath him, trying to cover her ears. He gasped out, "I suppose we'll need to cancel our dinner plans now."

The Xanid admiral watched the transponder beacons on his viewscreen blink out as the compromised agents were vaporized by antimatter warheads. Orders fulfilled, he began to issue the commands to move onward to the starbase for resupply. Perhaps later, when the current war was over, he might lead the invasion to put these xenos in their place as slaves of the Suzerainty. Some proper glory to make up for fleeing a battle with a mere defense station, even a Forerunner station.

They were just moving out of orbit when their sensors picked up the signature of a Jump rift opening on the edge of the system. The admiral had barely enough time to order a full retreat before the energy lance impaled his flagship, followed by a kinetic bombardment that pulverized the rest of his fleet, scattering their debris to the edges of the system. The warships dealt with, the Forerunner fleet turned their attentions to the starbase, vaporizing its' defensive systems before landing marines that left no survivors among the Xani crew or their Vheln slaves. All that remained was the skeleton of a deserted outpost orbiting the star Zol. Work done, they left the system to assault the next Xani outpost, paying no heed to the planet or its primitive inhabitants.

But, the mammals of Zootopia would not soon forget that night. Now they knew that they were not alone in the universe, and that their neighbors weren't necessarily friendly.


	2. Chapter 1

_Five years after the failed invasion_

Judy looked out the shuttle window as they cleared the atmosphere and the flames from friction died away. They were in space now, officially they had left Zootopia, not just the city she had grown up admiring and enthusiastically emigrated to half a dozen years previous, but also the planet that many mammals were using the same name for. As the planet's curvature receded below them she wondered what would become of her life now. For nearly seven years her life had been a series of upheavals. Becoming a police officer, moving to the big city, uncovering a conspiracy to destroy the foundations of Zootopia, an attack by aliens! And now she was going into space itself.

Her thoughts were interrupted by a hand resting on her shoulder, she turned to see her constant companion of the past half-decade leaning over her. "Something on your mind, my sly bunny?" Nick was strapped into the seat next to her, wearing a flight suit similar to her own like all the passengers on the shuttle that left only his head and hands uncovered.

With a glance at the gold band encircling his middle finger, Judy answered. "Just thinking, it's been a hectic past few years. So many changes, some for the better, others for the worse. Which category might this fall under?"

Her husband snorted. "What? Afraid that Chief, sorry, Admiral Buffalo Butt will draft us into a galactic war for our survival?"

"Don't kid about that!" She snapped, "you know the Militarists have been pushing for mandatory service ever since the Army and Navy were revived." With a sigh, Judy continued. "I can understand their arguments, but you went through the crisis militia training with me too and you know how hard it was. I wouldn't expect most bunnies or foxes, to say nothing of the rodent species, to make it through them. It would effectively be denying entire species the right to vote."

"Alright, fine, no jokes about the draft. Bogo's probably just going to _ask_ us to transfer to a police department on one of the new mining stations they're building in the Asteroid Belt." Nick laid back in his chair and closed his eyes for a nap, they still had hours to go before reaching the Spaceport. Before falling asleep he remarked, "that attitude is why I married your fluffy butt."

Judy half-snorted, half-giggled at that comment. "I thought it was because we weren't certain either of us would live through these uncertain times? And you wanted to make sure you kept the apartment if I got squished on duty?"

Nick may have mumbled something along the lines of "not on its own."

"Now, I just want to say, that I'm not going to force you to do this." Admiral Mason Bogo sat down at his desk in the Spaceport administration across from the fox and bunny. "However, there are state secrets involved that I cannot tell you until you agree to the job. So now's your last chance to back out."

Nick raised an eyebrow and quipped, "what that's it? Not even going to give us any hints? Like is the Bellwether/Xenomorph connection involved?"

Bogo glared at the impudent fox, snorted, and to both their surprise, answered. "Yes."

The fox's eyes widened and his ears slicked back in wild astonishment. "Wait, seriously? I thought that was just some crazy conspiracy theory?"

"I cannot say whether the theory is proven or refuted unless you agree to serve first." The cape buffalo picked up a paper folder and started to rifle through the contents as he spoke. "What I can tell you is that we want you to command a survey mission."

"Command?!" Judy spoke up, excited. "As in, commanding spaceships?"

"One laboratory ship, one armed escort. We were thinking that Wilde could apply his charms to keep the eggheads in line while Hopps keeps them out of trouble." Bogo slapped the file shut with considerably more noise than necessary. "That is all I'm cleared to tell you now."

The couple looked at each other expectantly. Nick, as usual, was the first to speak up. "So, Carrots, what do you think? Seeking out new worlds, boldly going where no mammal has gone before? Sure beats a boring picket fence and 2.5 dozen kits?"

Judy had to take a moment to consider. "I'll admit, that does sound interesting. But, I also want to know whether there really was some link between Bellwether and the aliens. Was it really mammals who tried to undo everything Zootopia stood for?"

"I'll take that as a "yes" then." The fox turned to the buffalo. "Alright, Chief Admiral Bogo, we accept. Tell us those state secrets."

Bogo sighed. "I thought you'd say that. Now, tell me, how familiar are you with the Bellwether/Xeno theory as you called it?"

"Well," Nick replied. "There's a hundred variants, but they all think there was some reason why the aliens destroyed the prisons where Dawn Bellwether and her goons were incarcerated. Some claim that Bellwether was working for them but was exposed and they had to silence her, others think she _was_ an alien, others think that the aliens were eliminating the only leader who could marshal a resistance to their invasion or that the aliens were laying down their own idea of justice."

"Right," the Admiral replied. "You are aware that we found bodies in the wreckage of the destroyed ships, correct?"

Judy was first to speak up. "The articles I saw mentioned two species were found. One that resembled insects and another that were more reptilian. I think they were tentatively being named _Xenos arthropoda_ and _Xenos chelonidae_ by biologists."

"Or Bugs and Leatherfaces as they're called on the street." Judy shot her mate a dirty look at his unprofessionalism.

"Accurate enough." Bogo groaned. "The thing is, Bellwether and her crew were given medical examinations when they were incarcerated. Nothing invasive, but blood samples were taken. As it so happened the samples were stored outside the blast radii, and the DNA was compared to what was recovered from the Xenos carcasses." He laid his hands on the desk to either side and leaned in close on the two mammals. "Bellwether's blood carried markers in common with the _Xenos arthropoda_ samples, while her hench-rams; Doug, Woolter, Jesse, and the two crooked officers, were Leatherfaces."

Nick and Judy felt a strange mixture of horror and relief. Their assorted species had just barely avoided a takeover by strange beings from another world. Yet, now they knew that it wasn't their fellow mammals who were responsible for the riots and discord that had nearly torn their civilization apart.

Noticing their mixed expressions, Bogo interjected. "Don't get your hopes up just yet. We haven't found any Xeno DNA in any of the other mammals we've arrested for hate crimes since the conspiracy. And that's not all that was classified. You probably heard that the alien ships were driven off by the pre-salvage space program with rockets full of explosives."

"I did think it a little odd that aliens who could vaporize city blocks from orbit could be convinced to retreat by what we had."

"Exactly, the reality is, we could do nothing to stop them. The truth is, there was a second fleet. Around the time that the first fleet started to leave, our satellites spotted another group of unidentified flying objects appearing out of nowhere at the edge of our solar system. After which they proceeded to pulverise the first fleet from halfway across the system and then moved on to the station here."

"We didn't even build this space station?" Judy asked, tentatively.

"To be fair, the second fleet didn't really leave much intact." Bogo pressed a button on his desk and a panel in the wall off to the side began to slide upwards, revealing a window into another section of the station. It appeared to be a large hallway of some sort, the floor covered with shattered chunks of hull and boxes that might have been cargo containers, a couple mammals in spacesuits were busy sorting through the detritus. The reason for the protection became obvious as the cover reached the ceiling. With a wave at the massive hole in the canopy of the external room he continued. "We have yet to find any derelicts, debris, or bodies from the aggressors. As such, we have no idea what their motives in destroying the Xenos presence in our system may have been. Personally, I hope they were some sort of galactic police, but for all I know they wanted to conquer us themselves."

"Wow," Nick gasped. "Have any other world-shattering surprises for us sir?"

"Yes." Bogo turned the monitor on his desk towards them, showing a schematic of two spaceships with one particular component highlighted on the both of them. "We were able to reverse-engineer the faster-than-light drives on the Xenos ships. Hopps, Wilde, you're leaving the Zol system."

It was a full five minutes before either one of the couple could muster the will to respond.


	3. Chapter 2

Stardate 15.2.2200, ZNV Corvette _Chimera,_ Zol Station

Captain Judy Hopps of the newly established Zootopian Navy fidgeted with the epaulets on her newly fitted dress uniform as the lift ascended to her new command. She knew that she had developed quite the reputation over the years as the bunny who saved Zootopia, and couldn't bear to disappoint her new crew. After what seemed like an eternity the doors opened and she crossed over the docking tube onto the ship's main deck.

The interior of the corvette looked cramped, and not just because seemingly the entire crew had gathered in there. The entrance was tall enough for a rhino to enter but the largest member of the crew was a tiger, and the majority of them appeared to be small species such as rodents and weasels. Off to the sides Judy could see passages and tunnels designed for smaller mammals and walkways at shoulder height for the larger species present, it seemed like the ship's designers had intended the craft for individuals of her size. Judy found the captain's chair, sized for herself but on a telescoping platform that rose so she could maintain eye contact with the taller mammals on the crew. She sat down and found the controls to raise the chair to its maximum height, coming close to the ceiling of the ship's bridge she began to rotate slowly, surveying the interior of the ship, her ship in fact.

As she turned around in place mammals of all shapes and sizes, wearing all sorts of uniform and insignia, raised their forepaws in salute. The magnitude of what she had agreed to hit her finally, she was in charge of a spaceship full of mammals who looked up to her, and she was taking them into the great unknown. Judy stopped at a viewport looking out of the hangar bay they were docked in, next to them on the port side was Nick's science vessel, the Vagabond. To starboard was the shipyard, building another corvette to round out the newborn Zootopian Space Navy. Before them was open space, the final, endless, frontier. Pinpricks of light shone out in the distance, not twinkling like they had back when she looked up at the sky in Bunnyburrow, but static. It seemed appropriate given the past five years, now every mammal in Zootopia knew that at least some of those stars held untold dangers.

Judy gave a hefty sigh as she stared out into the blackness. "Twenty years ago," she began, "I resolved to become a police officer to help make the world a better place." She slowly started to lower her chair to be at shoulder height for a fox-sized mammal as she spoke. "Six years ago my first case led me to uncover a conspiracy to turn us against one another and destroy the Zootopian dream." The little bunny lifted her head now to look around at her assorted crew. "I don't know what you may have heard, but it is a verifiable fact that Dawn Bellwether was not from this world. For whatever reason she was slain by her own kind when they bombed the prison where we held her." With that, she leapt up in her seat, leaning against the nylon back and facing every member of her crew in turn. "We cannot assume that they are friendly, whoever they are they wiped out nearly a thousand mammals in order to kill half a dozen of their kind. That would imply we are either their enemy or beneath their notice. Whatever the case, the Zootopian Star Republic does not intend to just wait for them to return, that's why we're going out there. To find new civilizations, learn their intentions, and secure new resources so we can defend ourselves. With any luck we might find some allies out there even." Beginning to settle back down, Judy gave her first orders, "Engineering, are we spaceworthy?"

A mouse standing over by the access tunnels sized for mammals her size spoke up, "all lights are green. Just give us time to start up the reactors."

Judy gave the engineer a nod. "Weapons, are you ready?"

A lynx in a uniform based on the police's dress uniforms saluted again. "Locked and loaded captain. Gunners are primed for the unexpected."

The first bunny starship captain turned to the last major division of her crew. "Helm, prepared to take us out?"

A sloth who had been raising his hand to salute since Judy had come on board continued to lift towards his head. "Just… say… the… word… captain… and… we… will… be… ready… to… lift… off…"

Judy rolled her eyes in amusement, if she hadn't already had experience with sloth's reflexes she'd have wondered what one was doing flying her ship. For a moment she was brought back to her and Nick's first official assignment together. As soon as the helms-sloth was done speaking she gave the order to request clearance for take-off.

As the crew scrambled back to their watch stations she could heard the boarding tube disengage from the exterior of her ship, the docking clamps followed one by one with a thunderous rumble. Spotting the _Vagabond_ already leaving the hangar ahead of them, Judy opened a communications channel with the science ship. " _ZNV Chimera_ to _Vagabond_ , come in Captain Wilde."

The screen that acted as the corvette's main viewport opened a window displaying a video stream from the other ship, showing its' vulpine captain laid back casually in his own chair. " _Vagabond_ to _Chimera_ , how're you liking the taste of command Captain Hopps-Wilde?"

The bunny gave another sigh at her husband's attitude. "We can have time to discuss personal feelings later. Is your ship prepared to head out into deep space?"

"As ready as we'll ever be Fluff." Nick tapped a few keys on his armrest and after some seconds a graphical display started to appear on the screen next to him. A wireframe of the Zol system and its planets coalesced along with numbers indicating various distances and velocities. "The eggheads say it'll be a week to the jump point though, think you can watch our backs that long?"

"Just imagine what it'll be like on the other side. See you later fox." Judy cut the transmission then and turned back to her own crew. "Helm, bring us out."

"Course…" the corvette began inching out towards the entrance to the bay. "Set…" gradually, the hull outside slid past to eventually fall away and show the inky black of space. "To…" Judy felt a slight increase in pressure holding her back against her seat. "Jump…" Ahead of them, the _Vagabond_ 's afterburners glowed red as it began to speed away from them. "Point." _Chimera'_ s main sublight drive kicked in and they accelerated after their science vessel mate.

86 hours later:

The two Zootopian vessels circled each other in a delicate dance, matching velocities perfectly. An outside observer would notice a hatch on the _Vagabond_ open for the briefest of moments to disgorge a small shuttle that streaked over to the _Chimera_ , which caught it with a similar vestibule.

Fifteen minutes later the two captains were sharing a meal in Judy's private quarters. She eating some of the ship's last fresh greens before they had to switch to frozen rations, him with a tray of fried crickets. The bunny considered that while the cabin was barely larger than her first apartment in Zootopia city, it had seemed unusually spacious for a compartment on this ship. At least until her almost twice her own size husband came to visit.

While they had exchanged video comms every few hours the past couple days, the realization that their face-to-face exchanges would be less and less frequent from now on gnawed at the bunny as they chewed their meals in silence for several minutes, unsure how to start a conversation. Finally, Nick took a large swallow of cricket and worked up the courage to speak up. "Halfway point to the great unknown."

Judy stared back at him, a chunk of stewed carrot halfway to her mouth. "I still find it hard to believe. Less than four days left before we jump to another star system entirely. Billions of miles crossed just like that."

"Well," Nick conceded. "Some of the scientists say that it could take a day or longer to travel the hyperlane, several hours just to charge up the drive before jump." He stopped and began to tap his finger on the plastic table in thought. "Though some of them insist it should be an instantaneous transition, a few think that there might be some funny thing with time and we'll experience decades or centuries on board while practically no time passes outside."

"That's ridiculous." The bunny retorted, some slight tinge of nervousness creeping into her voice. "How would the aliens have survived star travel if that happened?"

The fox gave a shrug as he picked up some more crickets. "Who knows? Apparently there were some sort of cryonic freezing chambers on the Xeno ships that most of the Reptilians were kept in, though nobody ever found enough for a whole crew. And then there was this one guy who insisted that something called cyto-revitalization would make aging a thing of the past."

Judy snorted, she remembered some so-called clinics that offered treatments that they claimed would make you feel ten years younger, ever since she hit thirty they'd started sending flyers on an almost monthly basis. But, with the kind of technology the Xenos had, who knew? "What if they're right though? Why do you have to go ahead of us?"

"Something about our sensors." Nick replied. "Apparently we've got some gravitic sensors or something on the _Vagabond_ that will allow us to find the right gravity currents to slip into. And it's so large that the shipyards couldn't fit both it and the missiles _Chimera_ here has on the same ship frame."

"But that's it's own problem!" Judy retorted. "What if there's a fleet of Xeno battlecruisers on the other side and it takes us a month to follow you?"

"Then we'll jump back." The fox said simply. "Look, a star system is a big place but there's no place a ship can hide without our sensors detecting them from a million miles away. We'll be fine."

"I hope so." Judy stood, her uniform top draping over her bare legs as she took her tray over to the door for the stewards to retrieve.

Stardate 22.2.2200, Zol system jumppoint Alpha.

Nick stared out the main viewport of the _Vagabond_ at the region of space before them. It looked no different than any other patch of empty space around them in the visible spectrum, but on the gravitational map it looked like the inlet of a channel. On 3d maps it would be shaped almost like a cone, the flared end facing Zol while the point faced the neighboring system. A 2d map would make it look more like an arrowhead or chevron.

"Doesn't look like much," Nick commented. "Are you sure this is the right place?"

One of the ship's scientists, a red squirrel showing some hints of grey fur on the tips of his ears answered, "this was where the Xenos charts indicated the mouth of the hyperlane would be. The gravitic sensors show a spatial channel leading from this location to a corresponding location in another star system. This should be it."

"Okay, so, how long to charge up the FTL drive? We're burning starlight here."

"Oh, the capacitors will take about 18 hours to charge, but there's readings and measurements we will need to make before we're ready to jump. That will take considerably more time I'm afraid."

Nick raised a suspicious eyebrow at that statement. "How much time? It doesn't have to be exact, but give me a ballpark."

"Well," the squirrel looked nervously up at the predator sitting in the captain's chair. "Maybe, ten days."

"Ten days!" The fox exclaimed. "And I was looking forward to spending tomorrow evening with my insatiable bunny wife under an alien sun." He stood up and began to walk off towards the shuttle bay. "Oh well, better go console her." Nick stopped for a minute at the threshold of the bridge and turned back towards his crew for a second. "You will inform me if there are any more delays now, won't you?"

The squirrel gave a little twitchy nod as the captain left.

Nine days, 15 hours later:

The comm device by Nick and Judy's bed chirped impatiently and an orange-furred arm reached out from under the sheets to pick it up. Seeing a call from Dr. Hazel, that antsy squirrel from earlier, Nick almost hit the default accept button before remembering his current state of dress and moving his finger over to the "audio only" key.

"Captain," the squirrel's voice came from the small speaker. "We're about ready to jump now."

Nick nodded, briefly, to himself, this was good news. He was afraid that they'd be delayed another day or two with how nervous that scientist had been. "Good, make sure everyone's fully awake, if there's no further delays we jump in an hour."

"A-affirmative captain." The link terminated and Nick slowly staggered out of bed, looking around for his clothes.

A little grey hand stuck out and grabbed at his tail, prompting a brief grin from the fox. "Sorry Carrots, mammals have been waiting on this for weeks."

"There's fifteen billion mammals back on Zootopia who don't even know this mission exists." Judy retorted. "It can wait a bit longer."

"Admiral Buffalo Butt knows." Nick responded. "And I wouldn't want to disappoint him, now, would you?"

The rabbit sighed and rolled off the bed to her own clothes. "Just speak to me again soon."

The _Vagabond_ 's hull started to acquire a shimmering golden glow as the hyperdrive charged up, from within the craft Nick saw space distort through the glow and the gravitational currents began to appear in the visual spectrum. "Preparing to jump," Nick noted. "Almost ready…" Suddenly the pinprick-spotted blackness of normal space vanished and the small vessel found itself careening through a tunnel of blue light. "What just happened?"

"Capacitors reached full charge, released automatically!" The weasel in the pilot's chair shouted as he fiddled with the controls. "Damn, this is psychedelic."

"Any idea how long we'll be in here?" Nick turned to Dr. Hazel, who lunged towards his own instruments.

"Gravitational readings suggest that based on our current velocity, we might reach the end of the hyperlane in about…" He waited anxiously for the calculations to finish. "Forty-two hours."

"Better tell our second-shift pilot to get some rest then." The vulpine captain noted as the ship swerved around a black spot in the tunnel.

Three days, seven hours later.

Judy brought up the hyperwave's comm screen again. As she'd expected, no notifications since the Admiral's transmission earlier that day for the twice-daily progress report. Nothing from Nick.

The hyperwave had been tested extensively throughout the Zol system since it was reverse-engineered three years previous. It appeared to provide lag-free communication across nearly any distance, but thus far it hadn't been tested for interstellar distances. The fact that it apparently couldn't be used to contact a ship in hyperspace led to some troublesome thoughts.

Feeling the latest cup of coffee begin to wear off, she left her chair to recaffeinate. While trying to convince the commissary dispenser to let her exceed the safe levels of caffeine for the third day in a row her comm beeped with a notification from the hyperwave. It was the _Vagabond_.

A wave of excitement that had nothing to do with stimulants washed over Judy as she flicked on the holographic display and her husband's visage appeared in mid-air before her. "Hey Carrots, what day is it over there?"

"7th of March, 2200." She exclaimed. "Why, what does it say on your clocks?"

"Well, dang, I bet on time dilation in the pool. Seems like the same amount of time passed for us as for you." The fox shrugged, "might have put us a little closer in age."

"Don't joke like that!" The bunny shouted back. "Well, what's over there? Anything dangerous?"

"Charge your drive Fluffbutt, you have got to see this."


	4. Chapter 3

Stardate 8.3.2200, Tau Cati system

The swirling vortex spun slowly in the viewscreens of the two Zootopian vessels. Blue light emanating from deep within its center distorted by the swirls of gas particles swimming around the great rift in space-time.

"So, what is it?" Judy asked her mate on the other side of the viewscreen 200 million miles away. Even on the far side of the solar system, Judy could see the thing with the naked eye, without visual enhancement.

Nick shrugged, "some of the guys think it's a proto-star or a gas giant, maybe some heretofore unknown version of a black hole. However," he paused to make sure she was listening. "Some of them think it might be a wormhole."

Judy thought for a minute, trying to remember where she'd heard the term before. "That's like a tunnel in space or something, isn't it? Like maybe it could take us to an entirely different part of the universe?"

"Sort of," the fox replied. "They tell me it's more complicated than that, but that's the basic idea. Unfortunately, it appears to be unstable. We don't want to risk getting torn apart by gravitational waves or blasted by stellar radiation, so we're preparing to launch a probe to check it out."

"Good idea," the bunny thought. "What do you know about the rest of the system?"

"Pretty typical really… A yellow star, two gas giants, a couple rocky planets, an asteroid belt and…" Nick sent an image of a blue, brown, and green orb rotating slowly in space.

Stardate 12.3.2200

A porthole opened in the science ship _Vagabond_ 's side and a small metallic object jetted out towards the distant space-time anomaly. As it streaked closer to the possible wormhole sensors and radar dishes unfurled from its sides and began scanning the anomaly. Swirling gases illuminated by blue light swept across its sensors, sending data on their composition back to the mothership. As the probe neared the source of the blue light it slowed, careful not to miss anything. But, as the probe came ever closer to the wormhole's mouth, internal sensors registered stress on the probe's frame. Alarms blared as bolts sheared loose from tidal forces as opposing gravitational forces pulled on the fragile device. The probe's last transmission before it was shredded was a glimpse of what lay beyond the event horizon, an entirely new sun and stars.

Stardate 15.3.2200

"You know, I can't help but be disappointed." Judy commented, her legs dangling over the side of the bunk.

"What's there to be disappointed about?" Her spouse asked, nuzzling her dewlaps. "We found a potential new gateway to distant stars. Some of the guys even have a theory for stabilizing the gravity currents so ships could pass without getting torn apart."

"Yes," Judy conceded. "But there's no guarantee that we'll live to see it implemented. It might be our grandchildren or even great-grandchildren who get the chance to go through that wormhole."

"So, you do want to adopt kids after all?" Nick inquired.

"Well, not right now." The bunny started to backpedal, looking a bit flustered. "Maybe in ten years or so, when I've been promoted out of captaining a starship."

"Maybe we can retire to that planet over there." Nick pulled up the image he'd sent a few days before. "Looks fairly nice from here."

Stardate 25.3.2200, Tau Cati II orbit

"Radiation readings make it unlikely that there is mammalian life on the surface." Judy rolled her eyes as she recalled Nick's suggestion from a few days ago. They were both on the _Vagabond_ this time, surveying the supposedly inhabitable planet's surface through its' monitors.

Nick gave a sigh as he looked over the scans himself. "I suppose that means it wouldn't make much of a "New Zootopia" then. Would it?" He asked the scientist who'd given the assessment.

"Um, no." He admitted sheepishly. "Not unless you think a colonist population would be willing to live in sealed pods and go outside wearing lead-lined pressure suits. A small research outpost maybe, but I don't see anything larger than that."

Something on the map caught Judy's eye as the scientist spoke. An array of lines in the soil radiating out from a central location on the shores of a lake in a grid formation. "Hold on," she interjected. "What is that? Could you zoom in any closer?"

The monitor magnified the region the bunny had indicated. With increased magnification they could make out long stretches of smoothed earth, lined on either side by raised structures that could not possibly be natural. "That's not possible," the scientist exclaimed in disbelief. "No mammal could…"

"The Xenos weren't mammals." Nick reminded his subordinate. "Who's to say they wouldn't think it was like home?" The fox studied the map more closely. "We've got planetary probes don't we? Drop one down there."

Stardate 26.3.2200

"They're dead…" Judy watched the feed from the probe flying through the streets of the city they'd spotted. They saw motionless ground vehicles covered in dust, through one relatively clean window they'd spotted a group of skeletons, still sitting in their chairs. The only signs of life some sickly plants and a bug the size of a wolf, rooting through the spoiled foods of an abandoned store.

Nick sighed from where he stood next to her. "I was afraid of this." He muttered. "The craters the Xenos left back home were radioactive, remember? The emergency iodine supplements for months afterwards?"

"Actually, sir," another of the ship's technicians approached them. "The radiation we're detecting here doesn't match that from the Xeno attack. We're picking up more alpha and beta particles and stronger gamma and x-ray readings than our craters had even during the first week. Though radiation does seem concentrated around these craters all around the planet." He called up a series of pics of craters that seemed to be the size of cities.

"So," Judy thought. "Something much more radioactive exploded on this planet and killed everyone. But what?"

"Well, Captain Hopps." He suggested. "The _Chimera_ is armed with missiles loaded with atomic fission explosives, right?"

"Yes," Judy grudgingly admitted.

Back on her own vessel, the bunny surveyed the site designated for the test. It was an empty desert, little radioactivity compared to the rest of the planet, relatively untouched. "Fire on my command," Judy ordered. "Launch in five, four, three, two," she silently hoped there weren't any sort of survivors she was about to vaporize. "Launch."

The nuclear missile streaked across the screen towards its' target, detonating in a blinding fireball just as the heat shield was starting to break up.

"Okay," Judy said as the fireball died down. "That's done, now Nick's scientists can make their scans…"

"Captain, multiple rocket launches detected. All across the continent!"

"What?" The screen confirmed it. Multiple red dots were appearing on the map. "Get me _Vagabond_ now!" Her husband's worried face showed on the screen almost instantaneously. "Nick, are you seeing this?"

"Already withdrawing." He replied.

"Good." Judy turned to her gunnery officer. "Prepare to fire upon any rockets approaching the _Vagabond_. Sensors, can you give me a time to impact?"

"They're not coming for us."

"What?" Judy turned back to the screen tracking the rockets. Their projected trajectories arced back to the planet, on the opposite hemisphere. As she stared, puzzled the first rockets landed and detonated with even larger versions of the same atomic fireball she'd produced. The blasts were followed shortly after by more launches from the targeted continent. "They're attacking themselves…" She noted, then the realization hit her like a brick. "They blew themselves up!"

Stardate 27.3.2200

Back in Captain Hopps' cabin Nick tried to console his wife. "They're pretty sure it was an automated system. The rockets all hit existing craters. Whoever aimed those things probably died ages ago."

"But they died!" The distraught bunny exclaimed. "They died, at the hands of other beings from the same planet. Would we have done the same?"

"We haven't yet." Nick replied. "We've even made it to another star system entirely."

"Only because two other planets had a war over us!" Judy protested. "If it wasn't for Bellwether we would still be at each other's throats over differences in diet."

"Maybe Bellwether's people killed this planet." Judy perked up a quizzical ear in his direction. "Think about it, she was from a planet that managed to get into space without blowing themselves up, she exacerbated interspecies tensions between us to the point where civil war seemed like a real possibility, and the planet right next door is a Tomb. Why waste your own ships and weapons when you can make the enemy kill themselves off?"

"I suppose that makes some sense." The bunny replied. "Which makes it fortunate that we were spared that fate by another world, isn't it?"

"Yes, yes it is." Nick said outwardly, but privately he wondered what motivated the second fleet. In any case, he didn't think he would like to meet them.

Stardate 2.4.2200

Nick was reviewing the final report on the surveyed planet, tentatively named "Necropolis", before it was to be sent back to Zootopia. Something caught his attention as he scrolled down the document, one of the Xenobiologists had noted unusual behavior in one of the giant insect colonies. It appeared that they had learned the use of simple tech, like a crow, but with notably more complex organization. The probes had observed them making repairs to a structure cobbled together from the rubble after the shockwaves from the second atomic holocaust had toppled it. The reporting Xenobiologist thought they might be useful if domesticated, and given a few million years on their own they might have even developed sapience.

"Life goes on." The fox commented as he sent the report off to Zol.

Stardate 20.4.2200

Judy found herself letting out a sigh of boredom, after the experiment at the tomb world they'd been left surveying the remainder of the star system for weeks. As with Zol it seemed that only the one planet had been inhabitable and the rest were barren rocks or gas giants. Some of the mineral deposits or gas mixtures might be of use to the future economic development of the ZSR, but they wouldn't be suitable for large-scale colonization, not by the long shot.

She was starting to think that she would be better off exploring the next star system without the _Vagabond_ , despite the claims that they would need the science vessel's instruments to chart out the hyperlanes first. Surely it would make more sense to have an armed ship be the first vessel in just in case they encountered hostile life like the Xeno bugs than to send an unarmed craft full of scientists? After several hours on watch Judy was interrupted from her reverie by the chime of her mate calling on her from half a million miles away.

The fox opened comms with a "hey, Carrots" as the bunny expanded the window on her monitor. "Take a look at this." Nick threw her an image of a patch of gas giant clouds with a scale noted that suggested the one image was as large across as the whole of Zootopia, the planet.

Judy scanned the image, but all she could make out were some swirling multi-colored clouds. "That's… pretty." She replied tentatively, looking for some special feature her husband might be trying to highlight for her.

Nick smirked. "It is, and do you see that one tiny little speck in the exact center of the screen?" The image zoomed in rapidly on the center, after several seconds Judy's eyes finally caught on the dark speck in the middle that he'd tried to point out.

Judy tried to examine the tiny object, it was long in one dimension and short in the other. As it zoomed in further she could make out rounded edges and bulges. "What is it?" She finally asked.

"We're not sure. " Nick replied. "But whatever it is, it's metallic. And regular."

Judy thought about what that could mean. "Regular, you mean regularly shaped?" At the fox's nod she continued her line of thought. "That means it's artificial then?"

"That's what it looks like at least." Nick confirmed. "Whatever it is though, it's about four times the size of the _Chimera_ and somehow hanging in space right in the mid layers of a gas giant. It's also too dense to be a balloon so our best guess would be a ship bigger than anything we've managed to fit anti-grav onto."

"A ship?" The rabbit exclaimed with no small amount of surprise. "Is it the Xenos?"

"No idea." He confessed. "It's too far down to make out fine details, but they did make ships this size, and larger. We're sending probes down to try and make sense of the thing. If possible, we'd like to salvage it and bring it up for study."

Probes scanned the ship where it lay deep in the thick atmosphere of the gas giant. They transmitted back images of its bulbous hull and flickering lights. Plans were made to attach carbon-fiber cables to the craft and gently lift it back up into space with the assistance of its own anti-gravity.

After several days of calculations and fabrication, the cables and grappling hooks were affixed to an array of probes and the two orbiting ships. Slowly, the lifting crafts' engines roared to life and began to carry the derelict up from its' resting place in the seemingly endless clouds. For the first few thousand miles, things seem to be rising smoothly, but suddenly a cable breaks and the array jolts as the derelict sways. Only the quick reactions of the _Chimera_ 's sloth helmsman keeps the ship from being lost forever.

Stardate 30.4.2200

Judy stepped out of the docking tube into the alien craft, her movements awkward in her spacesuit. The interior of the ship seemed almost like it was organically grown, though metal the winding corridors were smoother and rounder than any welds she'd seen even in the Sahara district. One of her marines, a wolf like most of the squad brought in to do initial reconnaissance of the craft, approached her.

"Captain, we've swept the whole ship. There's no sign of a crew anywhere, just some fungus growing on the floors and walls. It's possible they evacuated before the ship sank."

"Do you think it's safe for the scientists?" The bunny inquired, taking note of a few traces of red and brown mold growing from the walls.

The lupine marine shrugged. "So long as they don't poke anything I don't see what could hurt them in here."

Judy nodded, she gave the signal on her radio for the science team to enter. A minute later her mate and a half-dozen mammals with twice as many degrees came out the docking tube she had just entered through. Nick took a sweeping look around as best as his helmet could allow. "Interesting choice of interior decoration." He turned to one scientist who already had his scanning equipment out, "is the air safe in here?"

The goat with a chemical sampler in his hooves adjusted the settings and watched the screen as the gases flowed into the device. "Nitrogen 75% and oxygen 20%. Close to Zootopia's atmosphere in composition."

"Oh good," Nick started unbuckling his helmet at that notification. "I was suffocating in this thing." He drew the helm off and took a deep sniff with his canine nose, and almost immediately started retching in pain.

"Nick! What's going on?" Judy looked with panic from her husband to the scientist with the gas sampler. "What else is in that air?!"

"Something," the fox gasped, "that smells horrible." He shoved his helmet back on and started trying to buckle it back in place. "It's like that time we were investigating the sewage treatment plant. Who was flying this thing?"

The bunny snorted at her mate's dramatics. "No idea, there's no bodies, at least that we can find. But at least it's not the Bugs or the Lizards, right?"

Nick shrugged. "Great, another alien race we know next to nothing about. Well, let's hope they don't mind us picking over one of their ships."


	5. Reboot Coming

I've given this some thought, and I have decided to cancel this series and rewrite it from the beginning.

I realize that I kind of pigeonholed Nick and Judy into the leader roles that are in the game, but since then I've decided that they would be better suited to positions outside the "grand strategy" overview Stellaris encompasses. Especially Nick, not sure what I was thinking with him.

There's also the constant updates radically changing the game. Have you seen the Dev Diaries for the next update? They're replacing the basic resource-producing buildings with "districts".

Zootopia's characters would fit into Stellaris better as part of a "first contact" scenario, the observation events certainly have plenty of material to work with. Or as an outright AU.

I'll be leaving these chapters up, but feel free to watch for the reboot.


End file.
